The exchange took place at Limestone creek, where
is now Maysville, Ky. It is said that af- [97]
ter the exchange was made that the rescuing party consisting of Colonel
Graham and some of his friends, who had accompanied him, reversed the shoes
on their horses, so if pursued by the Indians, the horses’ tracks would
seem to be traveling in an opposite direction. This precaution was doubtless
taken on account of a failure to secure his daughter on a former trip,
at which time every necessary arrangement for her ransom seems to have
been made, when he was counseled by the Indian agent to go without her,
as he saw in the conduct of the young warriors that they were determined
to follow him and either recapture or kill his daughter.

Upon the return of Elizabeth to her home, the customs she met there
were new and strange to her. On one occasion when her mother asked her
to “soak the bread” and afterwards asked her how it was getting on, she
replied, “very well” that she had taken two loaves and “thrown them in
the river and put a rock on them”. To this new mode of life she could not
easily be [98] reconciled and ever and anon
would clamor for the wild life of the wigwam. At one time when she threatened
to return to the Indians, her mother told her sister, Jane, to pretend
as if she would go with her to see whether or not she would actually make
the attempt. She readily accepted Jane’s proposal to accompany her to the
Shawnee towns and the two sisters crossed the river in a canoe and proceeded
but a short distance, when Jane inquired of her what they would eat on
their journey, to which she replied by pulling up some bulb root herbs
from the ground and eating them saying they could find plenty of the same
kind along the way to keep them from starving. Jane remonstrated with her,
saying that she had not been accustomed to eating herbs and would starve
and finally succeeded in persuading her to return home. This account was
given the writer substantially as stated by David W. Jarrett, who is a
son of Elizabeth’s sister, Jane, and he says he has it from the lips of
his mother.